


Even Though It's Just You

by demigoddesses



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coming of Age, Crushes, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Transphobia, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance, Trans Hoshizora Rin, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigoddesses/pseuds/demigoddesses
Summary: "Hanayo is ten years old when she first discovers that girls can kiss other girls."A fic where Rin and Hanayo grow up, navigate their identities, join a school idol group, and maybe fall in love with each other. Canon compliant.





	Even Though It's Just You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Kimi no kuse ni." 
> 
> There's quite a bit of time skipping, which I hope isn't confusing, but here's your warning.
> 
> Also, yeah, in this fic Rin is trans so if you're going to be bothered by that, don't bother to read.

Hanayo is ten years old when she first discovers that girls can kiss other girls.

She’s scrolling through a fan forum of one of her favorite idol groups when she stumbles upon a drawing of two of the idol girls kissing. Each other. On the mouth. While in a tight embrace. She stares at it for a full second before coming to her senses and closing the tab in a panic. She looks around, but thankfully her parents aren’t in the room. This is the first time she’s ever seen two girls kissing, but she’s certain it’s the kind of thing her parents will disapprove of.

And that would have been the end of that, except that Hanayo, in her curiosity, goes back to that forum the next day and finds the picture again. Her heart’s pounding in a strange way that it never does when she sees pictures of a girl and a boy kissing. Maybe it’s because she’s looking at two of her favorite idols. It’s probably because of that. Hanayo’s idols always make her heart beat quickly.

One thing leads to the next, and one picture leads to another, and the next thing she knows, Hanayo’s waist deep into what other fans refer to as “yuri.” There are a lot of pictures out there. Some of them are quite innocent: girls holding hands, hugging, looking into each others’ eyes tenderly. These are the types of pictures that Hanayo has seen frequently on idol sites before, except she’d always assumed that the girls were just being friendly with each other. Other pictures are not so innocent.

Hanayo mostly avoids the less innocent pictures, but she likes looking at the other pictures. She especially likes looking at the pictures of the girls kissing. Sometimes it makes her cheeks turn a little red and her head feel a little dizzy, but it doesn’t feel wrong, even though it’s still the kind of thing she wanted to hide from her parents. In fact, it feels really, really right. The only problem is that there aren’t very many of these pictures out there.

She doesn’t really question _why_ she likes looking at these pictures too much, just like she doesn’t really question why she likes school idols. She just does. It really isn’t that big of a deal.

/

Hanayo’s eleventh birthday is coming up, and when her best friend Rin asks what she wants for her birthday, she knows exactly what to say: idol merchandise - whether in the form of keychains or figurines or posters or books or CDs or pins or really anything. As long as it has her idols on it, she’ll be happy.

“Okay! But, Kayo-chin, you always ask for that, nya! Don’t you want something else?” Rin asks.

Hanayo fervently shakes her head. “I don’t want anything else!”

Rin tilts her head. “Why do you like idols so much, nya?”

“Huh?” A thousand reasons flood into Hanayo’s mind at once. She thinks about how she loves each of her idol’s personality and voice and appearance and character. She thinks about how idols have a brightness and charisma to them that immediately make her smile. She thinks about how hard her idols work, and how they're ordinary students that somehow do amazing things, and how grateful she is that her idols are a part of her life, and how by being their fan, she’s a small part of their lives too. She wants to support her idols in any way she can, and she wants to be a better person for them, and she’s inspired by them every day.

But none of these things come out of Hanayo’s mouth because in that moment she’s much too overwhelmed. “I - I don’t - I can’t - someone save me!” she cries.

Rin immediately wraps her in a big hug. “Ah, don’t worry about it Kayo-chin! I’ll get you the biggest, prettiest figurine I can find!”

/

Later, while scrolling through her favorite fan art gallery, Hanayo thinks about a bit more. Why she likes idols so much. She has a thousand reasons, of course, but she realizes it really boils down to one thing: she wants to be just like them. Of course, she knows this is never going to be possible. School idols are indescribably _amazing_ , and she’s… not. So she tells herself that she’s content to be a fan. But in the deepest, most secret corner of her heart, she wants to be a school idol.

As for the pictures her idols kissing each other, the reason she likes them so much is simple as well. She wants to be just like them too.

/

The realization that she, Hanayo Koizumi, is a lesbian should be a problem, but it really isn’t. This is because nobody else knows. Hanayo intends to keep it that way.

What is a problem, however, is that her best friend Rin is very cute. Hanayo’s always known this, of course. She’s known this for a very long time. But now that she’s realized that she’s gay, she looks back at her past actions and feelings through a different lens. And well… Rin is really, _really_ cute.

“D-do I look okay?” Rin asks, slowly stepping out of the dressing room. She’s wearing a frilly white blouse with a short blue skirt, and it makes Hanayo’s heart do a funny little somersault.

“You look amazing!” Hanayo gushes, turning bright red. Thankfully, she blushes quite frequently, so Rin probably won’t think it’s weird.

Rin nervously pulls the skirt down. She shifts from foot to foot. “I don’t know, Kayo-chin. Maybe I should just wear pants.”

“Is this about those mean boys again?” Hanayo asks. It hurts her to see Rin - energetic, confident, beautiful Rin - look so sad and insecure, but Hanayo doesn’t really know what to say. She never knows what to do in these kinds of situations. She should’ve punched the boys who hurt Rin! They had no right to tell Rin that she was really a boy and that boys shouldn’t wear skirts.

Hanayo thought Rin was a boy too, the first time they met, and embarrassingly enough, she’d continue to believe it for the first few years that they were friends. But she’d stopped misgendering Rin once Rin had come out in the third grade and told everyone at their elementary school that she was really a girl.

“It’s not about the boys!” Rin says in a tone that really isn’t very believable. “It’s just - I don’t think I really look that cute.”

“Well, if you’re not comfortable in the skirt, you don’t have to wear it?” Hanayo says uncertainly.

Rin nods. “Yeah. I should just wear what makes me comfortable…” She trails off sadly, and Hanayo desperately wants to clasp Rin’s hands and tell her that she honest to God is the cutest girl that she has ever met, and she wants to hold her tight and maybe even kiss her -

But Hanayo has never been brave, and she doesn’t say anything at all.

/

Rin is nervous and excited about middle school all at once, but mostly excited. It won’t be like elementary school, she tells herself. She’s going to a new school with lots of new students, and nobody is going to “forget” that she’s a girl. Nobody is going to insist that she’s a boy. Nobody’s going to bully her or say mean things behind her back, and she’s not going to have to use the gender neutral bathroom for disabled students or hear teachers read out her dead name during roll call anymore. She’ll just lay low in school and convince everyone that she’s a normal everyday girl.

 _You are a normal everyday girl_ , Rin tells herself. _Just because you’re trans doesn’t mean you’re abnormal or weird_. That’s what her mom told her. She’s lucky to have such supportive parents - but maybe that mislead her. She thought the world would be so easy. She thought that she could tell everyone at her elementary school that she was a girl and start wearing skirts, and everyone would think it was fine. She was wrong.

But everything is going to be different in middle school! No one’s going to know her secret except the principal, a special guidance counselor, Kayo-chin, and herself.

Rin skips out of her house wearing a dress.

/

On second thought, maybe she shouldn’t wear the dress. She doesn’t look cute in it. In fact, she looks so ugly that she’ll just draw attention to herself, and then everyone is going to make fun of her because she looks terrible in it, and then people are going to start questioning things and digging around and then they might find out her secret, and that would be a total disaster.

From now on, life is going to be different, but no dresses.

/

In her favorite ruffly shirt and a pair of pants, Rin waits at the train station for Hanayo to arrive. Hanayo went on a family vacation to Europe over the summer; her parents thought it was a good idea for her to have “a last chance at fun” before high school. It’s been a long, long, long time since Rin’s seen her, and she can’t wait to reunite with her best friend! Okay, five weeks isn’t actually that long of a time, but it’s a long time for Rin! Hanayo has been a near constant fixture in her life since Rin first saw her crying during kindergarten and told her to, “Stop crying, nya!”

“Nya?” the crying girl had said, looking at her curiously through her tears.

Rin nodded, happy that the girl had stopped crying. And then she got a closer look and recognized her. “Hey! I know you! You’re in my class, right? You sit right next to me! You’re Kayo-chin!” She tilted her head. “Why were you crying?”

“I-I’m sc-cared,” Kayo-chin confessed. “Th-This is all so n-new, and I d-don’t have any f-friends.”

This stirred something in Rin’s little heart. She didn’t know much about Kayo-chin, but she felt this strong urge to protect her. She puffed out her chest and stood a little taller. “Don’t worry, Kayo-chin! I’ll be your friend.”

It wasn’t until a full week later that she’d learned that Kayo-chin’s name was actually Hanayo, but the nickname had already stuck. It was kind of cute, after all, just like Hanayo herself. By then, they were best friends.

/

When Hanayo steps out of the train, Rin acts first and thinks later. She runs at full speed, pushes through the crowds, and tackles Hanayo with a big, big hug.

“You’re baaaack!” she cries.

“R-Rin-chan!” Hanayo shouts as she loses her balance, caught completely off guard by Rin’s momentum. She tries her best to clasp onto Rin and stay upright, but this only has the effect of taking Rin with her, and they both fall onto the ground, with Rin on top of Hanayo.

“Oops, sorry, Kayo-chin!” says Rin, quickly getting off her best friend. She reaches out a hand and helps Hanayo stand up. Hanayo’s blushing. They’re both blushing, actually. Rin feels warm all over. It’s a pleasant warmth, but it’s also confusing, and Rin can’t stop thinking about how close they were and how warm and soft Hanayo was. _That’s because you were crushing her, you idiot!_ she thinks. Hanayo’s probably just thinking about how clumsy and heavy Rin is…  

“It’s okay,” says Hanayo, readjusting her glasses. “I’m glad you were so happy to see me.”

“Of course I’m happy, nya!” She looks over and grins and suddenly thinks, _Woah, was Kayo-chin always this cute?_ She just has the most adorable purple eyes and the most brilliant smile. Rin forgot how cute Hanayo was over the summer - it really isn’t the same video chatting and texting - and it totally catches her off guard.

/

After the first day of high school, Hanayo goes home with Rin, as she so often does. They  decide to go over their new classes together and watch a movie or too; plus, Rin has a special announcement.

“Hormones! I’m finally on real hormones, not just puberty blockers!” Rin tells Hanayo, practically jumping off the bed while Hanayo sits on the ground, eating some rice crackers. “I’m going to grow taller, and start getting acne, and maybe even get boobs!”

Hanayo drops her rice cracker. “Eh? That’s amazing, Rin-chan! I thought you weren’t going to get them until you were sixteen!” Rin’s happiness is contagious; it’s making her all excited too.

“Yeah! But my parents and my doctor and I have been discussing it for a really long time, and we all decided that I was ready!” Rin exclaims. She twirls around on the floor.

Hanayo giggles at Rin’s antics. She almost wants to dance with her. Rin always makes her feel like she can do anything, even things she would never do on her own, even things she would never do with anyone else. She feels her cheeks warm and wonders when her silly crush on Rin is going to go away. She already knows the answer. (It’s never.)

“Kayo-chin, dance with me!” Rin orders, as if having read Hanayo’s mind. “You can even put on your idol music!”

No, she could never do this with anyone else. But with Rin, she doesn’t mind. She’s usually so shy, but with Rin, she doesn’t mind blasting her favorite idol song and dancing like a fool and smiling until her cheeks hurt.

/

Two weeks fly by, and Rin heads home from her doctor’s appointment with a successful assessment that there are no complications with her hormone therapy. She likes her doctor, a very professional woman that specializes in transgender children like her. She’s been seeing her doctor since the third grade, when Rin first started to socially transition. Dr. Okimura claims that she has dozens of patients just like Rin, which makes Rin curious. Are there other girls like her, right under her nose, who have just never told her? It’s not her business to ask, though.

“What did you think about the appointment?” her mom asks on the drive back home.

“Great! It was great! You know, you were right there, you know it was great!” Rin says happily, swinging her legs back and forth.

“I know I was there. I was just asking if you had anything else to tell me.” In the rearview mirror, Rin can see her mom raise a knowing eyebrow. Her mom _always_ knows. How does she always know?

“Lately I’ve been getting a weird feeling around Kayo-chin… Like my heart beats really fast, and I feel kind of nervous, and I blush a lot, and sometimes my hands get sweaty,” Rin confesses, the words all coming out in a jumbled rush. “Do you think it could be because of the hormone therapy?”

Her mom laughs a little bit, but as always, she takes Rin seriously. “How long have you been feeling this way?”

Rin pauses to think. “Since she came back from Europe,” she finally says.

“That was before the hormone therapy, wasn’t it?” her mom points out.

“Well, yeah…” Rin admits. Now she’s all confused. She thought she was confused before, but now she’s really confused. “But then what is it?”

“I think someone has a little crush,” her mom says, her voice a little teasing.

“Huh?” It takes Rin a while to get it. “You mean - me? On Kayo-chin? But she’s my best friend!”

“It’s quite common to fall in love with your best friend,” says her mom rather calmly. Rin has no idea how she can be so calm about this, when Rin’s chest feels like it could explode any second!

“And Hanayo’s quite cute, isn’t she?” her mom adds, with a little smile, and Rin wants to slink under the seat and maybe disappear. Images of her best friend flood into her mind unbidden - Hanayo crying at the lunch tables at kindergarten, Hanayo holding her hand tight in third grade, Hanayo in a light green dress at elementary school graduation, Hanayo cheering in the stands at all of Rin’s middle school track meets, Hanayo dancing in her room to idol music, Hanayo laughing and smiling and hugging her and tucking her hair behind her ear and -

 _Cute_ isn’t the right word for Hanayo. Hanayo is beautiful, and oh my God, Rin’s in love with her.

“Do - Do you think that’s okay?” Rin asks her mom hesitantly.

“Of course it’s okay,” her mom immediately responds. It’s the exact same thing she said when Rin asked if it was okay that she thought she was a girl.

Rin looks down at her lap and fidgets with her hands. “But what will everyone else think?”

“You’ve always cared too much about what other people think,” her mom says with a sigh.

But her mom doesn’t understand. The world isn’t that easy, and in fact, the world can be a very dangerous and unwelcome place for girls like her. She never asked for her very existence to be such a controversial and offensive thing. She just wants… She wants to... Tears prick in the corner of her eyes, and she blinks them away before her mom notices.

Since when does she cry? The hormones must be getting to her.

/

School idols are here. Here, in Otonokizaka. They’re right here, in her school, passing her in the hallways and saying hello, and Hanayo stares and stares at the poster in front of her, starstruck.

School idols are here, and it is an emergency!

“Are you going to join, nya?” Rin asks, tilting her head.  

Hanayo jumps. She was so deep in her mental freakout that she didn’t notice that Rin was right next to her. “N-No. Rin, we’ve talked about this. I’m not suited to be an idol…”

Rin frowns and crosses her arms. “But what do you really want?”

“What I want? I want -” Hanayo falters. Hanayo wants a great deal of things. She wants to be taller and thinner and prettier. She wants to not stumble over her words while reading out loud in class. But more than anything, she wants to be brave. Brave enough to be an idol. Brave enough to tell Rin that she loves her.

“I just want to eat lunch,” she says with an awkward laugh. “My mom packed me extra rice today!”

/

Becoming a school idol is like a dream, and if anyone asked Hanayo how it all happened, she wouldn’t have been able to describe it. It’s all a blur to her. Everything was happening so quickly, and she was a nervous wreck throughout the entire process. But she knows that her friends played a big role in it. Rin, and now Maki. She would never have been able to take that first step without them.

/

Being an idol is fun. It’s much more fun than Rin expected, actually. She’s starting to understand why Hanayo likes idols so much. And the best part is that she gets to do this with Hanayo. And everyone else too. Everyone else is wonderful too!

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide her feelings around Hanayo. They’ve always been very physically affectionate friends, but now Rin’s hyper-aware of every time they touch, and it makes her blush and crave more. She finds herself staring at Hanayo’s lips a lot. It’s pretty bad.

“What am I going to do, nya?” Rin says to herself.

“What is it, Rin-chan?” Hanayo asks, her mouth full of rice.

Oh right. She forgot that Hanayo was right by her side, as she so often is. They’re eating dinner together at a local ramen shop which also serves rice dishes, so it’s the perfect restaurant for Rin and Hanayo.

“It’s nothing, nya!” Rin says. She slurps some ramen noodles so that she can appear casual. Yup, nothing questionable here.

Hanayo, thankfully, is oblivious.

/

"It's been awhile since we've done this," Rin says softly, stroking Hanayo's hair.

Hanayo lies with her head in Rin's lap and looks up at her beautiful best friend. "We've been busy, I guess." With the Love Live coming up rapidly, both she and Rin haven't had a lot of spare time on their hands. They have their early morning practices, and lately their after school practices have been running longer and longer. Never longer than they can handle, of course - Honoka makes sure that nobody pushes themselves too hard. On top of that, they all need to keep up with their schoolwork; otherwise the director wouldn't be happy. Hanayo wouldn't trade her current life for the world, but she's tired a lot of the time. And she can't remember the last time she and Rin had a calm and lazy sleepover, with just the two of them.

"I missed this," Rin says, and Hanayo turns away and faces outward, at the television. She doesn't dare look into Rin's eyes. She might not be able to control herself. She tries to focus on the figures on the screen. They're supposed to be watching a movie.

"Me too," she whispers, so quietly that she's not sure if Rin catches it. Rin's hand is so soft in her hair. Gentle. Soothing. She closes her eyes and just appreciates the moment: her and Rin. She's so grateful. So happy.

/

Being an idol is fun until the second years get stuck on their school trip, leaving Rin to be the leader and the center at their upcoming show. Then being an idol is… not so fun.

The dress is white and frilly and girly and beautiful. It’s a dress straight out of her dreams. It’s a dress straight out of her nightmares. Wearing it is entirely out of the question. She wants to wear it more than anything else in the world.

Seeing Hanayo in the dress hurts more than she thought it would. She’s beautiful. She’s so beautiful that it makes it hard for Rin to breathe. She’ll never be good enough for a dress like that; she’ll never be good enough for Hanayo.

Rin returns home and looks at the skirts and dresses in her closet that she never wears, except late at night when she knows she’s alone. She thinks about the boys in elementary school who made fun of her for wearing her skirts. She thinks about her doctor reassuring her that what she wore wasn’t indicative of her gender and Hanayo telling her to wear what she’s comfortable with.

For a long time, that was her armor. She told herself that plenty of girls only wore pants and shorts, and she wasn’t any less of a girl because of what she chose to wear. She told herself that being a girl didn’t mean fitting into arbitrary gender roles. She could be a girl in whatever way she wanted to be, in whatever way made her happy.

Rin wants to be the type of girl who wears dresses.

/

When Hanayo holds her hands tight and tells her that she’s cute, when the other members of μ’s all look her in the eye and tell her that she’s cute, she doesn’t believe it. Rin doesn’t believe it at all, but she understands that the other girls all took the time to relearn the choreography and remake the dress with her measurements, all for _her_ , all for her to take the stage as the center, and she understands that the show has to go on, and she can’t say no.

Rin doesn’t think she’s cute, but she thinks that she’s a kind and loyal friend, so she does this for them, for μ’s. But as she puts on the dress, she’s overwhelmed with the feeling of how _right_ this is. She looks at herself in the mirror, and she waits for the voice in her head to start yelling at her, for her insecurities to roar alive. Instead, she realizes something. She _is_ cute. It’s not because of what the girls of μ’s think. It’s not because of what the audience might think. It’s just because she is.

With each step that she takes on the stage, with each word that she sings, with each cheer of the audience, Rin feels it more and more and more. This is right, _so_ right, she wants this, and she is really damn cute.

Why did she spend so much time denying it? This is who she is.

/

Rin is absolutely radiant on stage in her white dress, and Hanayo can’t take her eyes off of her - even though she should. She should look at the audience and smile brightly like a good idol would, so she forces herself to tear her eyes off her best friend/the love of her life and channel all her pride and happiness into her performance.

Backstage, after they sing, Hanayo and Rin crash into each other's’ arms. They pull apart, and as they gaze into each other’s eyes, Hanayo tries to think of something to say - _You were beautiful I can’t believe you did that I’m so proud of you I love you_ \- but maybe they don’t need words in this situation. Hanayo’s grin is so wide that it almost hurts her cheeks, and her heart is drumming so loudly that the entire room must be able to hear it, and Hanayo turns away before she does something that she’s going to regret.

Hanayo notices with a jolt that there’s people all around them - cheering, applauding, congratulating them. She hadn’t even noticed. She lets go of Rin, a bit embarrassed. God, she was seconds away from kissing Rin in front of all these people. She needs to start being more careful.

/

Rin thought that she had enough life-changing revelations for one day, but the moment she steps off the stage and into Hanayo’s arms, something else clicks into place.

This is what she wants. She wants spend the rest of her life wearing as many cute dresses as she wants - with Hanayo right by her side. She’s never believed in soulmates, but she’s certain that she could never belong with anyone else. It has to be her. It has to be them.

The world isn’t easy, but loving Hanayo is so, so easy.

Maybe some things are worth fighting for.

/

"I'm so proud of you!" Hanayo later tells Rin, after the crowd disperses and the other μ’s girls have gone home. It's just them now, heading for the bus stop.

"Thank you!" says Rin. She twirls around in her dress. She changed out of the frilly white one, of course, into a more casual pink piece that makes Hanayo's heart skip a beat. (Then again, when doesn't Rin make her heart skip a beat?) Rin suddenly reaches out and grabs Hanayo's hands.

"Kayo-chin, I don't think I ever told you, but I'm really proud of you too," she says.

"Huh?" Hanayo asks.

"You got over your fears, and you joined μ’s, and you've been performing on stage with everyone else time after time! It makes me so, so happy and so, so proud every time I see you on the stage with me!" Rin says. She doesn't let go of Hanayo's hands.  

"Eh? It's not that big of a deal. It's only because of you..." Hanayo says modestly.

"Don't say that! It's a huge deal for you!" Rin chides. "And of course I helped, but you're the one who did it in the end! You!" She lets go of Hanayo's hands and pokes Hanayo in the stomach for emphasis.

Hanayo stares at Rin for a moment before nodding and smiling. Rin is right. She was brave enough to become a school idol. She didn’t do it on her own, but she was the one who took the first step, and then she took the next step, and the next, and the next. Maybe she’s braver than she thinks, if she’s brave enough to come to practice day after day and get onto stage performance after performance.

"Th-Thank you, Rin-chan. And I know I already said it, but I'm really proud of you too. You got over your fears too, and you got on the stage because you were strong enough to. You!"

Rin grins and twirls again. "Oh, I know that already, Hanayo. I'm proud of both of us! I feel like we can do anything!" She suddenly breaks into a run.

"Eh? Where are you going?" Hanayo asks, chasing after her friend.

"Anywhere!" Rin turns around briefly and throws her hand back towards Hanayo. "We can go anywhere!"

And even though Hanayo should know better (they have to catch the bus, after all!) she just wants to throw caution to the wind. And for once, she does what she wants. She grabs Rin's hand and runs along with her and thinks, _We can do anything. I can do anything. I can be brave._

“Rin-chan,” says Hanayo as they run, hand in hand. “I love you.” They’ve told each other that they love each other before, as friends, but this time, Hanayo doesn’t hold herself back and really puts her entire heart and soul in it, praying that Rin will understand that she doesn’t mean as friends.

“I know,” Rin says. For a second - just a second - Hanayo thinks that Rin doesn’t understand, and she’s crushed, but then Rin looks over her shoulder and smiles, and Hanayo can’t believe that she ever even doubted her.

Rin has always understood her.

“I love you too,” says Rin, and she squeezes her hand, and it’s that simple. No big gestures, no explosive moments, no tear-stricken declarations of love under a sakura tree.

Just two best friends, hand in hand, running into tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know this fic is cheesy, but that's why I wanted to write it. Life might be awful, and true love may not be real, but my fictional lesbians are pure. The other reason why I wanted to write this is because I have tried so hard to find a good trans!Rin fic and I've yet to find one that I really like. So I wrote my own. PS if any of you know a good trans!Rin fic let me know
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
